Encouragement

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Timing is everything, they say. And sometimes "they" are right. Take this week, for example.

I was heading home when a car flew past me in the other direction, going, I would say, probably 75 miles per hour or so in a 55-mph zone. As soon as he passed, in my rear-view mirror I saw the smoke from his tires as he stomped on the brakes to avoid rear-ending the car in front of him. He swerved into my lane (remember, this is only two or three seconds after we passed each other), got around the other car, then swerved back into his own lane. After swerving back and forth several more times, he slammed into the guardrail where his crumpled car came to a stop.

Think about it: Had I been two or three seconds later, my lane would not have been an empty path for this reckless driver - I would have been right there. Instead of a one-car, non-fatal accident, it would have been a two-car, deadly crash.

It wasn't blind luck that I passed that car when I did and avoided being killed. It was the perfect timing of God.

Yes, timing was certainly everything that day.

But there's more to the story. Again, in God's perfect timing, there were other men and women there who stopped to render aid to the injured driver and to help direct traffic on the heavily traveled two-lane road. Additional cars stopped, allowing more good Samaritans to offer their help.

Of course, in the Pharisaical airs that I too often put on, I found myself thinking, "OK, we have enough help here. After all, the guy was speeding, and who knows what else he was doing. How much help does he need?"

God, in His perfect timing, soon answered that question for me.

Yet another car pulled over. This one caught my attention because of the license plate: LEFT YA. The driver got out and headed over to the crash victim.

Now, I know nothing about this young man, but I almost told him to move on, that we had more than enough help, that he would simply be one more person hanging around and probably getting in the way. I almost said that. But God kept my big mouth shut.

Soon, I walked back over where the injured man lay on the ground, obviously in pain - and there was the young man that I wanted to shoo away, down on his knees holding the hand of the crash victim. He knelt there comforting this man - something I, as a Christian, should have already been doing, but wasn't.

God, in His perfect timing, sent someone to do the job that I failed to do. Even though his license read LEFT YA, this man didn't leave the needs of an injured man unmet. He stayed and comforted him.

When I got home that afternoon and saw my wife and children, I was extremely grateful that the timing was right, that I was able to see my family again, that I was spared a horrific accident by just two or three seconds. And I was grateful that He placed a young man in the right place, at the right time, to provide the most important help of all.

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